Raid questions that I can't find the answers for

[loosscru]

Well I am thinking about a new build around a p35. Was considering a two drive RAID 0 (with external back up). This is just a home computer, games and such. I was going to overclock a bit, but nothing to extreem (maybe up to a 400mhz FSB with a E6850 or E8400, DDR2-800 etc...

My raid questions.

1) the Abit p35 pro (for example) has two raid controllers, 5 SATA connections and 2 eSATA connections. The jmicron appears to be attached to one of the internals and the two externals, the intel covers the other 4. Would running Raid-0 on the two of the intel connections prevent me from running other drives such as a DVD writer off of the 3rd or 4th intel SATA connection? i.e. does it put the whole controller into RAID mode such that any drive attached to the controller must be in RAID?

2) I understand that on install you need to use a floppy to load up the RAID drivers, any way this can be done through USB external drive/memory stick, or CD/DVD burnt with the driver on it? I can even get my hands on a USB floppy but I would rather not have to install an internal floppy if it can be helped.

3) Any realworld performance gain with going with RAID 0 for my uses. I know that it should almost double my transfer speeds, but how often do you actually wait on those in home office/gaming use?


Thank you very much

 

[gwolfman]

1) the Abit p35 pro (for example) has two raid controllers, 5 SATA connections and 2 eSATA connections. The jmicron appears to be attached to one of the internals and the two externals, the intel covers the other 4. Would running Raid-0 on the two of the intel connections prevent me from running other drives such as a DVD writer off of the 3rd or 4th intel SATA connection? i.e. does it put the whole controller into RAID mode such that any drive attached to the controller must be in RAID?

2) I understand that on install you need to use a floppy to load up the RAID drivers, any way this can be done through USB external drive/memory stick, or CD/DVD burnt with the driver on it? I can even get my hands on a USB floppy but I would rather not have to install an internal floppy if it can be helped.

3) Any realworld performance gain with going with RAID 0 for my uses. I know that it should almost double my transfer speeds, but how often do you actually wait on those in home office/gaming use?

1.) I don't think this matters. It should still work. It will just enable the RAID feature and then you need to create the RAID array and you should be all set.

2.) You can only use USB flash or CD/DVD if you will be installing Vista. XP does not support those methods. So if it's XP, you have 2 choices. Floppy (USB or regular) or slipstream that f6 driver using a program like nlite.

3.) Home/office: you won't notice much of a difference at all. "Maybe" when you load your programs if they are large, but that's about it. For gaming: pretty much game/level load times will be shorter. Other than that the differences are small.

 

[geofelt]

Question 3 should have been first. Read this to see if you can benefit: http://faq.storagereview.com/tiki-index.php?page=SingleDriveVsRaid0

 

[redboy33]

I just bought a MSI MOBO with 6 internal sata, with 2 of those controlled by a promise controller.

My OS is installed on a the Promise RAID 0 (2 - 80GB) array. I do not have a floppy installed so I needed a way to load the drivers during the xp install. As gwolfman said above use nlite, it is awesome!

http://www.nliteos.com/

I will be purchasing 4 more sata drives and making another RAID 0 array for games and applications (and maybe the page file, need to research this)

Anyway, I think everything is faster with RAID 0, but I'm not an extreme gamer or extreme anything for that matter

Have fun!

 

[gwolfman]

...As gwolfman said above use nlite, it is awesome!

http://www.nliteos.com/

I agree, it's so simple to use, yet very effective!

 

[loosscru]

Thanks for the responses. I guess I am still on the fence but leaning towards not going for Raid-0.
Just wish there more more real world performance reviews. I know that Windows will launch faster, but by how much? I know that large files in games will load faster (if they are uncompressed, else, i have read, the CPU is still the chokepoint, but maybe not so much anymore?). I know that if I did lots of video editing raid 0 would speed things up, but how much is still unkown.

I guess i just wish that when they test these hard drives they show more real world tests and explain what the benefits are. I was going to buy either 2x250gb drives or 1 500gb drive, about the same price either way. The 500 performs a bit better, but nothing huge.

I think that if it is only going to save me a few seconds on load times then it is not even worth the effort to set up....

Thank you for the responses.

 

[redboy33]

But Raid 0 is COOL!!! Just do it

 

[rexter]

I don't know much about that board. But if I were you I would go and install RAID 1 at eSATA since raid will be warmer than normal if installed side by side. You might be wondering why use external for raid, answer is simple no fan needed.

My question is that how often do you transfer files on the raid and what device it is coming from? Loading programs from Raid 1 is fast too and since I don't have tools to find out which is faster, Base on my experience RAID 0 or Raid 1 load programs prety much same speed.

Raid 1 is also faster on accessing data because 2 drives with the same files means you have twice as much cache available. And once you installed the programs everything you do is reading information from that drive especially you save your project with "(with external back up)". Raid 0 maybe faster than 1 in terms of writing but like I said what are you putting on your RAID 0 if you have external drive for your projects?

I my assumption is that reading programs is more likely be the priority for that setup, and Raid 1 has the same outcome and more reliable.

Now you can setup the Raid 0 or 1 without floppy disk or USB drive as long that you initiate a raid partition first on windows. So when you install the OS the software will see the hard drive and ready to use. Make sure you use operating system like Windows XP with SP2. Otherwise you’ll need the floppy disc or USB to install the driver.

I tried Raid 0 and it's fast but if you keep on changing things on your computer. You need reliability of your data. because one thing you don't want is to reisntall every thing. The worst part is updates.

 

[rexter]

I just realize I haven’t done much research on eSATA so I’m not sure if data transfer would be the same or less than SATA. So eSATA may not be a good choice.

 

[loosscru]

i use true image for backups on an external so that is not much of an issue. It is more selective then raid 1 but takes up less space too.

From my understanding eSATA and SATA run at the same speed (on the same type of drive). Please, correct me if I am wrong

 

[UncleDave]

What are you trying to achieve? More speed? Then go for Raptors. RAID 0 is a waste of time and effort. If you must "RAID" the go for RAID 1.

Please spend some time reading this forum before you walk down the RAID 0 path.